Magazine publishing luminary Albert Read understands the power of imagination. The former managing director of Condé Nast UK, Read has spent his career helping develop some of our most important creative content, overseeing titles like Vogue, GQ, and Vanity Fair across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

In his new book THE IMAGINATION MUSCLE: Where Good Ideas Come From (And How to Have More of Them), Read crystallizes how our imaginations bind us all together, inspire our innovations, boost our productivity, and provide a crucial relief valve “easing the crush of reality.” Below, he gives a preview of how we can all strengthen our imagination muscles.

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For a long time, an idea has been bubbling away in the back of my mind – which led to my new book, The Imagination Muscle.  

We traditionally think of the imagination as something fixed inside of us and beyond our control.  This notion started in the Classical world with the idea of inspiration (coming from the Latin ‘inspiro’ – to be breathed upon by the gods). 

I want us to consider the possibility that the imagination is something quite different.  That it is a miraculous and joyful power within us that possesses the properties of a muscle; a power that can grow with practice; one that is malleable and one that can flex and strengthen with exertion.  

We take care of our physical health; we pay attention to our emotional well- being – so why don’t we think more systematically about our imaginative health?  All the evidence suggests that, if we do so, we will be more alert to the world, more successful, happier and more alive.

But how do you exert our imagination muscle?  

Here are 10 ways…

  1. Develop your powers of observation.

Observation acts as the torch bearer of the imagination. It illuminates the path ahead for those with an enquiring state of mind.   

The most imaginative minds, like Leonardo da Vinci, understood that is through very precise observation – often through sketching or noting – that we spot the details (and the opportunities) that others glance over.

Develop your ability to observe – through notation or sketching.  Throughout, you will be asking yourself: ‘What can I do with this new piece of information’?  By truly observing, you are deepening your sensibility and widening your consciousness – and, in doing so, signalling to your imagination a statement of intent.

  1. Be attentive to your imaginative moments

We all have ideas – but we don’t always pay attention to when we have them or how we might have more of them.  

When do you have your best ideas?  Is it while walking? In the shower?  First thing in the morning?  Or is it when you are leaving a crowd of people and you find yourself alone, walking down a street – and the ideas come flooding in. 

Find the imaginative moments in your day.  Be attentive to your state of mimnd. Cultivate these moments and use them productively.

  1. Take notes

When you have ideas, write them down.   

Keep a physical notebook with all your ideas and observations in them.  Scribble in the margins of books you are reading as ideas occur to you.  Look back on them occasionally and join the dots between ideas that you have recorded at different times. This used to be known as a ‘commonplace book’.  

By keeping a commonplace book, you will  accumulate ideas and make connections between them.  These will, over time, create the foundations of your imaginative identity. 

  1. Do one imaginative act that scares you – every weekend.

Make yourself uncomfortable – imaginatively.  

When you have some space in the day, write a short story, do a drawing, compose a piece of music.  Do it regularly.  These small acts will scare you at first and the results might look ridiculous in the cold light of day.   But eventually something will happen: you will lose your fear, your embarrassment, your predilection for so-called success – and you will feel happy to take a risk and to fail – realising it’s no failure at all. 

By doing something uncomfortable in the field of creativity, you realise that the notion of artistic failure is irrelevant. Great artists fail all the time. But it is through the exertion of your imagination, you will find instead that there is fulfilment and an expansion of the mind, irrespective of the results.

  1. Be a beginner

Get away from your normal field of expertise – and be a beginner at something.  

If you are an entrepreneur, study music.  If you are an artist, learn about science. If you are a scientist, take up art. The best scientists – like Albert Einstein or Richard Feynman – tended to possess a disproportionate interest in the arts.  By continually learning through art, they retained the humility, curiosity and energy of someone just starting out.

By being a beginner at something, you retain the freshness of a youthful mindset, and you see more easily across boundaries.  You put aside that frequent and limiting companion to maturity – the need to feel right. 

  1. Develop your individual imaginative identity

Most creative people (think of Picasso or George Lucas) didn’t start out by worrying too much about originality.  They begin by copying and then developing their own ideas on top.  Find people to copy – at least when you’re beginning a creative project.  Draw ideas from different and surprising sources.  

Get away from the digital algorithms that direct your interests into the same grooves as others.  Develop your own imaginative palette. Read what no one else is reading.  Stare at things you don’t fully understand.  Join up disparate elements that have never been thought of together, to make unlikely and surprising connections. 

  1. Treasure ‘the spaces in between’

Resist the urge to pick up your mobile phone.  

The best ideas often happen in the gaps, those moments in the day – standing in a queue, waiting for a bus – where your mind is allowed to wander. The Japanese have a word for it: Ma – arising from the Buddhist idea of emptiness and selflessness.  These are the quiet interstices, the pauses – when life deepens its imprint.  These are the moments when nothing much happens and yet you can feel most alive.  

Rediscover your authentic sensibility with a mind that, freed from stimulation, is allowed to be calm and meandering.

  1. Cities

How can cities help the imagination?  

We all know (without always realising it) that the best thinking tends to take place not in sterile grids of buildings and wide avenues, but in cobbled squares, tangled streets and town squares with mixed groups and chance encounters.  Think of the Left Bank of Paris, or Greenwich Village, New York City.  These are the areas where imaginative people tend to congregate. How do we learn from this?  

We are increasingly city dwellers.  The imagination is our salvation.  But where, in the discussion of our surroundings, is the common design language of connection and serendipity? 

  1. Join a Cluster

History has demonstrated over and over the power of the cluster – groups of like-minded people, competitive but eager to learn from each other, producing world changing ideas.  

Think of the Baghdad House of Wisdom, the Salons of Enlightenment Paris, the coffee shops of London or the Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley.  These were regular, informal gatherings that materially accelerated the progress of human civilisation. 

Find a group of people with similar interests, with whom you don’t always agree.  Allow them to challenge you – and challenge them in return.

  1. Empathy is the imagination’s child

Empathy is the basis of all moral thinking.  Empathy is the imagination’s child.  

Without the imagination, without empathy, there is stagnation, prejudice and cruelty.  With the imagination, you not only have empathy and compassion – you develop ideas, new possibilities and hopes for transformation. 

By developing your imagination muscle, you will connect more easily with others.  You will develop sensitivity, empathy and a deeper understanding of the world you inhabit.  The imagination is fundamental to life and human understanding. 

A book cover with text

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The Imagination Muscle is published by Union Square

Author(s)

  • Albert Read has launched and led businesses for Condé Nast in the UK, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. He’s overseen such titles as VogueGQWiredCondé Nast Traveller, and Vanity Fair. A former journalist, he has written for The SpectatorTLSTelegraph, and The Times. He lives in West London with his wife and three children.